April 14, 1981: Landing of Columbia on STS-1

The final manned Mercury mission was launched atop an Atlas rocket on this day in 1963 with Gordon Cooper aboard Faith 7 for a 34-hour, 22-orbit flight.

#OTD…Launch of a 1994 Space Radar Lab mission on Endeavour

One-by-one, the three crew members are pulled from the Soyuz MS-01 capsule and placed in reclining chairs minutes after landing in Kazakhstan.